


Crack Shot

by arthur_pendragon



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: (somehow), Anachronisms galore, Canon Era, Humour, M/M, Merlin - Children in Need Universe, Merlin In Need AU, i said crack, utter crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 11:09:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14471382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arthur_pendragon/pseuds/arthur_pendragon
Summary: Fed up of being mocked by Arthur, Merlin challenges him to a pistol duel. It goes about as well as you could expect.





	Crack Shot

**Author's Note:**

> a fill for [this prompt](https://kinksofcamelot.livejournal.com/1806.html?thread=201230#t201230) at [Kinks of Camelot](https://kinksofcamelot.livejournal.com). Didn't even have to think very hard to come up with that apt, punny title.
> 
> I put off de-anoning for ages ( _ages_ ) but in the end decided to own my trash.

Euripides once said/wrote/recorded, _Talk sense to a fool and he calls you—_  
  
“Merlin,” shouted Arthur.  
  
Merlin exhaled noisily and broke off his conversation with Gwen to glare at his king. Arthur raised his eyebrows pointedly.  
  
Merlin shook his head at Gwen, who smiled—in sympathy, Merlin ~~projected~~ hoped—and drifted off for far more pleasurable ventures, e.g. not being subjected to Arthur’s mockery, not being the punchline to Arthur’s jokes, not being taunted by—  
  
“Go on,” said Gwaine, turning to wink at Merlin over the back of his chair. “He loves talking to you, despite all appearances to the contrary.”  
  
Merlin folded his arms and huffed and didn’t move an inch until he was at Arthur’s shoulder.  
  
“How is the feast treating you, Merlin?” Arthur held out his _Best King in the World_ mug. “In the mood to be a proper servant by any chance?”  
  
“You’re not supposed to put wine in that, though,” Merlin said. “It’s for things like tea and coffee.”  
  
Arthur pouted in a brilliant attack move. Merlin countered it by looking away, slashing Arthur’s HP by 50 (Merlin had a tally and everything).  
  
“Why are you still in the castle’s employ?” asked Arthur, fingering the rim… of his mug, you filthy minds. “I should have actually run in the opposite direction the day my father saddled me with you.”  
  
Merlin remembered that day all too well.  
  
“I’m Merlin,” he had said, holding out a hand in the pursuit of a fresh start with the prick who’d got him thrown in the dungeons.  
  
“Arthur. Prince Arthur Pendragon if you’re nasty,” Arthur had said, and smirked at his new manservant.  
  
Present-day Merlin scoffed. “You know I wanted to punch you in the face then?”  
  
“You, physical violence? LOL,” said Gwaine, making Merlin want to punch him in the face, too.  
  
“Merlin cries if he steps on an ant,” Arthur said. “I don’t know why I bring him on hunts still, he chases everything off in the name of mercy.”  
  
“I beg you not to drag me along, you—”  
  
“The other day I ordered him to put down one of our old dogs and he honest to god threw a fit.”  
  
“I did _not_ —”  
  
“He’s just sensitive,” said Lancelot, the traitor. “He couldn’t hurt a fly.”  
  
“I could hurt _you_ ,” said Merlin, and frowned at the resulting laughter.  
  
“Merlin, Merlin,” said Arthur, patting him on the arm and pulling him onto his lap. “Please. I’m sure we’d all be entertained if you really chose to lay a hand on a _knight_ , but do abstain for the sake of your ego and non-existent courage.”  
  
“I’ve had it!” Merlin yelled, jumping off Arthur’s thighs. “I challenge you, Arthur Pendragon, to a pistol duel, and the winner, me, will leave with his intact honour and you shutting the fuck up about my girlishness.”  
  
Arthur blinked.  
  
“What’s a pistol?”  
  
Merlin told him, and even magicked up a pair to show him. The glee on Arthur’s face was entirely ~~un~~ warranted as he looked at all his knights and fingered one of them (the _guns_ , oh my _god_ ). The knights responded with a unanimous thumbs up.  
  
“So be it,” Arthur declared. “Tomorrow at noon, we shall fight. The first to draw his gun and shoot wins. Find a desert town for us, Merlin, you great girl.”

“Ugh,” said Merlin.

 

***

Merlin searched far and wide between Gaius’s workshop and the corridor outside for a desert town but, shockingly, found none. So he cut corners and dumped a bunch of red sand in the courtyard, sticking a couple of cacti at the borders for good measure. His magic was, after all, good for more than protecting the prat he was about to maim.  
  
Arthur didn’t look like he minded the fake setting anyway.  
  
Gwaine and Lance stuck a couple of swords into the sand twenty paces apart and winced as they struck the stone underneath.  
  
“You aim the pipe part at him and pull the trigger,” Merlin heard Gwen whispering furiously to Arthur, who nodded once and made a face like he knew everything.  
  
Leon stood to the side and looked worried because no one ever asked him to do anything else.  
  
Merlin met Arthur midway between the swords.  
  
“Good luck,” Arthur smirked, looking down at him in more ways than one.  
  
“You cheat, you’re wearing chain mail and all your armour,” said Merlin.  
  
Arthur leaned in and pecked Merlin on the lips. “Don’t know why, you’ve awful aim,” he whispered with a salacious wink.  
  
Merlin kissed him proper, and said, “Eat shit, Pendragon.”  
  
“I’m kinky, but not _that_ kinky.”  
  
They stared at each other mutely for a minute, hearts in their eyes because they were both brainless idiots who had nothing else to do. Leon brought out an ocarina and played a very familiar tune from a movie none of them dared mention for possible legal reasons (but which rhymed with the Food, the Fad, and the Fugly).  
  
Merlin turned and walked ten paces to the sword on his side. Arthur imitated him.  
  
They turned around again to face each other twenty paces apart, guns safely holstered.  
  
A crowd had gathered at this point because, let’s face it, people get bored and more than one person wanted to watch Arthur get shot.  
  
Gwen coughed slightly and brought out a handkerchief.  
  
“You both know the rules,” she said, and hoped they did because she didn’t.  
  
She raised the handkerchief into the air, and dropped it.  
  
(ocarina: _fortissimo_ )  
  
These are the sounds and noises that ensued:  
  
A bullet striking metal, a myriad gasps, and an outraged scream of “I can’t believe you fucking _shot_ me! We’re breaking up!”  
  
The subsequent laughter of a manservant and the call of “I hear Lance is single anyway!”  
  
A knightly choke and a kingly “Merlin, heal me at once, you g—person.”  
  
And then when no one else could hear, a whispered “You’re not really going to leave me, Merlin?” and a “Oh, you prat, I love you too much.”  
  
All followed by a bunch of kissing and sex noises in Arthur’s chambers, but we can’t stick around for that, we’re not voyeurs, are we?  
  
~~We are, but the author (lol, author) is a coward, much unlike Merlin.~~

**Author's Note:**

> ... *clears throat awkwardly*
> 
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
